This invention relates to computer system architecture and particularly to new instructions which augment the IBM z/Architecture and can be emulated by other architectures.
Before our invention IBM has created through the work of many highly talented engineers beginning with machines known as the IBM System 360 in the 1960's to the present, a special architecture which, because of its essential nature to a computing system, became known as “the mainframe” whose principles of operation state the architecture of the machine by describing the instructions which may be executed upon the “mainframe” implementation of the instructions which had been invented by IBM inventors and adopted, because of their significant contribution to improving the state of the computing machine represented by “the mainframe”, as significant contributions by inclusion in IBM's Principles of Operation as stated over the years. The First Edition of the z/Architecture Principles of Operation which was published December, 2000 has become the standard published reference as SA22-7832-00. We determined that further new instructions would assist the art and could be included in a z/Architecture machine and also emulated by others in simpler machines, as described herein.